Mexico Remains No. 3 Opium Poppy Producer

With 26,100 hectares dedicated to opium poppies, Mexico continues to be the third largest producer of the plant from which heroin is made, says the 2017 report of the UNODC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The estimated area of poppy plantations in Mexico was based on data from 2014 and 2015 and while relatively small there has been a marked upward trend.

In 2005, just 3,300 hectares of land were used to grow opium poppies in Mexico, but four years later the figure was up to 19,500 hectares.

By 2012, a thousand hectares were added to the cultivation of opium poppy, a source of heroin and morphine.

The amount of heroin confiscated has increased over the years as well, from 362 kilograms in 2011 to 546 in 2015.